


just one day

by syncopate (orphan_account)



Category: SHINee
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Magic-Users
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 01:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9100132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/syncopate
Summary: "If you could, would you swap souls with him? Just for a day, with no consequences, no blame. Would you?" [one-sided!minkey, one-sided!jongkey, background!jongyu]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> cross-posted from my aff with a few edits!

_If you could switch souls with him for just one day. No consequences, no blame. Just one day. Would you?_

 

Minho’s eyes are unnaturally wide and bright white in the dim corner of the pub, and Kibum laughs, drunk on alcohol and despair.

 

 _Maybe I would_.

 

There’s something interesting and cryptic that slides into Minho’s eyes, but Kibum is too exhausted to chase it.

 

~~

 

He wakes without the pounding in his head he’s become almost accustomed to by this point. Far too many nights spent drinking in a foolish attempt to forget what he cannot forget. Perhaps at some level, he realizes that all the alcohol in the world will not plug a hole in the heart; a crater he calls it when he’s being a little more dramatic. But it seems preferable to have the pain muddled around the edges instead of sharp sharp _sharp_ ; like broken glass shards pressed haphazardly in flesh.

 

Minho says it’s incredible he still functions. Minho says he’s going insane. Minho says it isn’t worth it.

 

Kibum thinks Minho might be right. That doesn’t stop him from moping and it definitely does not stop Minho from following.

 

Minho is a good friend, Kibum decides. Too good for his pathetic, heartbroken self.

 

It’s not even like he has anything worth being miserable about; it’s not like there was truly anything that was broken, or lost. Just a tiny dream he should probably have given up ages ago. Hope that should have been stamped out as quickly as it had bloomed.

 

The person next to him groans softly, a sound that indicates slow waking and Kibum’s heart lodges in the opening of his throat. He hadn’t even realized there was a person in his bed.

 

When he looks, the world goes silent around him, hanging on breath. And there is a clear moment of brilliant hope and possibility before he realizes that something is very very wrong.

 

‘Jonghyun,’ he breathes out. Jonghyun, with his soft eyes and tender mouth and a heart so large where Kibum always wanted to hide. Jonghyun, who wears his emotions bare on the sleeve of his shirt, carries worries too big for his slender frame, and puts too much emotion into every action.

 

Jonghyun, who he’s loved for so very very long, but never really told.

 

How do you speak of love anyway? The words always seemed reluctant to leave his lips, lingering taste on his tongue, sweet and bitter and pained, _I love you I love you I lov-_

 

He thought they’d have forever, that the little spark in Jonghyun’s eyes was his, that there were strings building between them, ropes of attachment and affection, twined between them, waiting.

 

The spark died as he waited, emotions kept behind a locked door, too far back to reveal before the strings broke. As Jonghyun created a new dream in someone else’s eyes.

 

He had been cast adrift, lost in the sea of his own misplaced longings, his own unsaid hopes. And he could throw blame where he might but it boomeranged back at him, his own fault in the games he played.

 

_I would hemorrhage out my heart if that means I could love you just for a while._

 

But that is too excessive.

 

The odds of Jonghyun being in his bed willingly is zero to none. But before the mistake falls apart around him, maybe he could just let himself dream. He traces soft fingers over the angles of Jonghyun’s face, like touching chips of ice, gentle and airy so they don’t melt. He doesn’t want Jonghyun to wake too soon, doesn’t want to let the illusion disintegrate around him.

 

When Jonghyun opens his eyes, there isn’t the shock and horror Kibum expects, there isn’t anything else except softness; languid, quiet softness. Nothing like the fond exasperation that is Jonghyun’s default expression with him. This is contentment, certainty. Something he hasn’t really experienced in his own tumultuous love life. This is something he wanted, once. Still wants. With a boy who doesn’t want it with him anymore.

 

‘You okay?’ Jonghyun says, worry bleeding into his irises. Maybe Kibum has been staring too long, too still.

 

He reaches up to curl fingers around Kibum’s cheek, thumb brushing the tender skin under his eye. ‘Hyung?’ he whispers, question lilting into the air around them.

 

And Kibum freezes, breath turning icy in his chest. For a moment, he thinks he’s trapped in one of those traitorous cruel hidden camera shows; made to bare himself and his insecurities, drag sandpaper over broken skin. But there’s too much sincerity in Jonghyun’s expression. And the Jonghyun he knows cannot lie; with his mouth maybe, but not with his eyes.

 

 _What are you talking about?_ He wants to say. _Who are you talking to? Have you forgotten who I am?_

 

And then his escaping eyes land on the closet in the corner of the room, too square, too bulky to be his, the mirror hanging from the wall too close to the bed for his comfort, the light on the ceiling, fluorescent instead of yellow. And it strikes him as amusing how he hadn’t realized he wasn’t in his own bed, in his own room.  How he hadn’t realized the sheets felt different against his skin. Too caught up with the boy next to him, breathing quietly and sliding in like Kibum belonged there.

 

But he doesn’t, and his reality has somehow shifted beneath his feet, twisted into an odd alternate world where Jonghyun is pliant next to him, content. Where they coexist in tandem in what seems idyllic and ideal. Where obviously Jonghyun thinks he’s a completely different person, but maybe that’s a price he’s willing to pay.

 

Occasionally, Kibum thinks Minho is right. He _is_ a fool.

 

Does love really make us foolish? Or is that just something we choose to turn ourselves into?

 

‘I’m not-’ and whatever he wants to say is caught at the entrance of his mouth, hidden behind his teeth, because his voice is _wrong,_ falling off-pitch. But Jonghyun looks at him, and it’s like comfort, like something he wants to hold to his heart forever. He doesn’t want to destroy it. He tells himself he could pretend forever if he has to.

 

‘Not?’ Jonghyun’s gaze turns quizzical and Kibum opens his mouth, gears churning in the back of his head, trying to find an excuse, trying to find explanation where there is none. _I am not who you think I am. I am someone else, someone you do not want. Someone, I think, maybe you wanted once, when I was still too proud to admit it._

 

When he says nothing in the end, mouth gaping open, face probably as blank as his mind, Jonghyun laughs, low lazy amused. And Kibum wonders if maybe the person who is always in Jonghyun’s bed is like this. Kibum wonders if in this different dimension he is caught in, Jonghyun always laughs like this. Kibum wonders when the spell will break.

 

‘Are you still half asleep?’ There is an undertow of affection in his voice, so intimate that Kibum feels like an intruder suddenly, prying and poking into a life that he shouldn’t have been able to see, or touch. But he doesn’t know how to make Jonghyun understand, doesn’t know if he wants to. All he knows how to do is lean in when Jonghyun does, let his mouth accept the kiss presented, casual and brief.

 

The familiarity of it makes him feel like a fraud, like an invader. But he tells himself he is hurting no one, tells himself he’ll walk away as soon as this illusion dissolves, tells himself that pretending, in this case, isn’t wrong.

 

So when Jonghyun rolls them over and presses his mouth harder into Kibum’s, the only thing Kibum does is laugh and push at his shoulders, mouthing something about ‘morning breath’. He decides he’ll keep pretending until it all goes up in flames.

‘Let’s go shower,’ Jonghyun says, and there’s a glint in his eyes that Kibum thinks maybe he should be afraid of. But there are fingers tight around his wrist and laughter floating in his ears and maybe he just doesn’t want to be afraid anymore.

 

(He tries to ignore the picture of a happy couple not me not me never me framed on the sidetable as they stumble past.)

 

It is ridiculous. Kibum decides it’s absolutely ridiculous. He’s woken up in a strange rose coloured world where everything he’s ever wanted is caught in the palms of his hands. He wonders if he’s still dreaming. If it’s really Jonghyun elbowing him in the ribs as they fight over who gets to use the sink first, if it’s really Jonghyun flicking water droplets at his hair, if it’s really Jonghyun’s fingers tugging into the strands of hair curling past his ears.

 

(The face that stares back at him from the mirror is wrong wrong _wrong_ but Kibum doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to destroy this. Can’t, won’t. Let the pieces fall where they might, he’s going to hold on to these moments like they’re the last fragments of sunlight in a broken world.)

 

There are things he shouldn’t do perhaps, shouldn’t even think of, not when he’s a parasite in someone else’s life, not when he’s nothing but a trespasser in someone else’s love story. But he can’t help himself when Jonghyun kisses him, can’t stop himself from pressing him against the wall, can’t stop fingers wandering where he’s always wanted to see, to touch.

 

There’s nothing wrong with it perhaps, not when Jonghyun thinks he’s someone else, some other person who has made a home in heart. There’s nothing wrong except Kibum knows there is, knows that he is making a mistake he might not be able to back away from, when the world reverts and rights itself. But there’s a sound that emits from Jonghyun’s mouth that makes him want to throw the thoughts into the wind, makes him want to forget everything except that boy rutting against him and everything he has wanted and _wants_ so desperately.

 

And then he decides to take.

 

Maybe Jonghyun realizes too, that moment when Kibum decides, maybe there is a signal that is released. Or maybe he does this often, with the boy who shares his life, maybe he slides fingers up his chest, traces symbols in his skin. Maybe he grazes teeth over the side of his neck too. But Kibum wants to pretend it’s new, wants to pretend this is his first time, wants to pretend that Jonghyun knows somehow that it’s _him_ , it’s Kibum, not-

 

He pushes the stray thoughts away, pushes doubt and despair away. Focuses on how beautiful Jonghyun looks, even with the dark shadows from the insomnia, even with the slight blemishes scattered along his cheekbones. There’s something terrifying about being so close to someone that even their slight physical flaws are obvious. And he’s never thought that he would ever-

He clamps down that thought.

 

Jonghyun looks up under Kibum’s searching gaze and laughs a little, opens his mouth to ask something, maybe. But Kibum pushes his mouth against Jonghyun’s again and the laugh is swallowed down his throat.

 

He runs his hand down the planes of Jonghyun’s stomach, up the skin of his back, digs fingers into the bottom of his spine. He presses his nose into Jonghyun’s hair, licks a trail up his neck. Kibum wants to memorize the touch, the scent, the taste. Because this is tethering on the edge of a cliff and he doesn’t know when it will disintegrate.

 

Jonghyun’s fingers are burning tracks on the sides of his body, his mouth a firebrand marking the side of Kibum’s neck and Kibum wants to stay there forever. Under the lukewarm water, under Jonghyun’s hands.

 

‘Do you want to..?’ And for a moment Kibum is unsure what he’s talking about. When he realizes, there is something akin to shame that spikes up his spine. But there is desire in Jonghyun’s eyes and desire in Kibum’s veins and he still wants.

 

‘No, you.’

 

Because he wants the pleasure pain of Jonghyun pushing into him, wants something to remember, to hold on to, into the empty nights he knows await him. And if tears fall out of his eyes even as his voice cries out his release, they can’t be seen under the spray of the shower.

 

Skin is skin and flesh is flesh and sex is just flesh against flesh right? It doesn’t have to mean anything. It doesn’t have to be filled with all the emotion that is choking Kibum now, doesn’t have to be regret and love and pain tangled into a mess he still doesn’t understand. And the truth is, he cannot push away the thoughts of wrong, because the part of him that isn’t being utterly selfish is larger than he wants to pay attention to now. Even if his love is real, there’s something almost fraudulent about this whole encounter.

 

‘I love you,’ Jonghyun whispers into his ear and Kibum wants to cry.

 

‘I love you too,’ he says back, even if he knows Jonghyun hears a different voice, sees a different smile, imagines a different heart.

 

~-~

 

‘Jonghyun, are you here, there’s something wron-’ The voice trails off as its owner barges through the front door.

 

Kibum freezes, because he knows that there’s no mistaking what has just happened. The wet hair and the towels in their hands, the mark on Kibum’s neck. And he knows also who this is, even as he wears Kibum’s face and Kibum’s body and talks in Kibum’s voice.

 

‘Bum!’ Jonghyun exclaims, ‘what are you doing here so early?’

 

 _Hello Jinki,_ Kibum thinks.

 

Jinki stares at them through Kibum’s eyes, rakes his gaze over their bodies. And Kibum sees pain flicker like a flare over his face before his features collapse into a blank screen.

 

‘I told him to come,’ Kibum tells Jonghyun quickly. ‘We have something to talk about.’ And he pulls at Jinki’s wrist out the door.

 

Jinki turns on him, rage sharper than the edge of a sword. ‘What the _fuck_ are you doing?’ he hisses. Jinki is usually sunshine and gentleness with hidden steel, but today the only thing left is steel. His voice cuts deep into the wounds already built up in Kibum’s heart.

 

‘I just- I wanted one day. Just give me one day. Please.’ There has always been something degrading about pleading, but Kibum thinks that for Jonghyun he would beg his soul away.

 

Pathetic.

 

‘You love him.’ There is pity in Jinki’s voice now, pity battling with disgust and Kibum wants to hide.

 

‘Yes,’ he says finally. And his eyes lift from the floor to meet Jinki’s. There is understanding there now too, pity and soft understanding.

 

‘Love isn’t possession, Kibum.’

 

And it’s not something Kibum wants to think about now, not something he cares about now, with something he wants so close to his fingertips. So instead he whispers again, ‘ _Please_ , for one day let me pretend.’

 

‘You’ll only hurt yourself more, you know?’ Jinki touches his shoulder blade, travels over to dance fingers lightly over the bruise on his neck.

 

‘How strange,’ he muses aloud. ‘To see myself through another person’s eyes.’

 

‘ _Please_ ,’ Kibum repeats.

 

Jinki’s eyes are sad when he lifts them again, and Kibum knows Jinki is sad for him, a desperate fool in unrequited love.

 

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Okay.

 

~-~

 

They’ll figure this whole situation out tomorrow morning, Kibum tells himself as he bids goodbye to Jinki, whispering gratitude through almost tears. They’ll make everything go back to how it was.

 

They’ll live on and nothing will change and he’ll survive. At least that’s what he tells himself.

 

But there’s a fear clawing at the back of his head that informs him if they try to solve this, he will lose Jonghyun, lose his friend, his warmth, his sun. The voice at the back of his head asks him if just one day would be worth losing him into forever. But Kibum is too far gone to change anything now.

 

Jinki knows, he thinks. Jinki realizes what he has done, perhaps more fully than Kibum does. Kibum, who just wants to etch out memories into his soul, carve his name on Jonghyun’s heart, even if Jonghyun doesn’t even realize who he’s really touching.

 

He is sure that the Jonghyun he knows would forgive him. Eventually. But he also knows that once this is over, something will have shattered between them, and any fixing they try will be useless at best. Nothing will be the same after this.

 

He has destroyed something precious. For almost nothing.

 

The breath he takes in as he turns the knob crystallizes in his chest and he decides to make the memories, decides to live the hours left without thinking about the future and the holes he has knocked into one part of his foundation.

 

~-~

 

‘What did Bum want? Why didn’t he want to talk to me?’ Jonghyun’s mouth is pursed into a small pout when Kibum pushes open the door.

 

‘Boy problems,’ Kibum says. And he nearly laughs, because it’s true. Just probably not in the way Jonghyun thinks.

 

‘He never wants to talk to me about that stuff,’ Jonghyun comments, lightly.

 

Kibum pauses, lungs cold in his chest. There’s something insane he wants to try.

 

‘He’s in love with you, you know.’

 

Jonghyun looks up at him, and then away.

 

‘I know.’

 

The world goes silent and too still around Kibum.

 

Jonghyun is looking out the window now, eyes distant, as if recalling something too far off from his current reality.

 

‘I might have loved him once too.’ And there’s a small smile that flutters briefly over his mouth. ‘But you know that.’

 

There’s ice in his blood now.

 

‘I do?’ The faltering words come out without provocation.

 

‘You knew when we met, didn’t you?’ Jonghyun’s smile is brighter now. ‘I’m not the most subtle of people. Kibum though, sometimes Kibum likes to cover serious emotions with laughter.’

 

And that perhaps, is where they had gone all wrong. Where _he_ had gone all wrong, stuck in an almost when Jonghyun had moved on to a happy ever after.

 

‘Let’s not talk about that, it’s Saturday! What do you want to do?’ Typical Jonghyun, switching so easily from almost pensive and emotional to hyper and childlike. Kibum thinks if he had been braver, maybe he would have been able to keep this, hold on to this.

 

Maybe in another world somewhere.

 

‘Let’s just stay home,’ he says. And Jonghyun smiles.

 

 _Just one day_ . _Just give me one day._

 

One day to pretend that when Jonghyun cries in front of a sad movie, it’s normal to slide over and grab him close. One day where it’s okay to kiss away his tears, and interlink their fingers. One day to press too close to his warmth. One day to trace lazy shapes into the skin between his hip bones. One day to test out recipes that Kibum already knows. One day to laugh so hard the world stops. One day to order food from take out places that both of them aren’t familiar with. One day to dance and sing to old songs they had forgotten existed. One day to lie in bed and just be with one another. One day to pretend that this could last forever.

 

~-~

 

It’s too easy, falling into comfort, forgetting that Jonghyun is looking at him and seeing Jinki, watching him laugh and hearing Jinki. Forgetting that when Jonghyun’s fingers graze his jaw, he’s touching Jinki, when Kibum presses lips to the corner of Jonghyun’s mouth, he feels, not Kibum, but Jinki.

 

And so, maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that he slips up. In fact, it’s surprising he hadn’t earlier.

 

‘Jjong!’ He exclaims suddenly, caught with an idea, and then freezes when Jonghyun looks up with slight bemusement. No one calls Jonghyun that. Only Kibum. Nothing special, just something that had happened.

 

But something nonetheless, that Jinki wouldn’t do.

 

And he is wracking his brain on how to cover the error when Jonghyun shakes his head and smiles.

 

‘I know it’s you, Kibum.’

 

Kibum’s stomach drops to his feet.

 

‘I know you, remember? And I know Jinki-hyung.’ And there is tenderness in his eyes that catches Kibum unaware, makes his heart crack a little more.

 

‘When did you- How?’ And then, Kibum’s eyes open wide, remembering something. ‘Was it before-’

 

And Jonghyun flinches in shock. ‘No of course not. It was after. If I had known before, I wouldn’t have done it.’

 

It shouldn’t hurt but it does.

 

‘I heard you talking to hyung, just bits and pieces that I didn’t understand at first. But I figured it out eventually.’

 

‘Then, why-’

 

‘You wanted a day right? So I’m giving you a day.’ The pity in Jonghyun’s voice feels like poisoned arrows.

 

And Kibum feels about as pathetic as a scab, and he wants to turn away and run. But this body belongs in this apartment and he still doesn’t know how to escape back into the body that actually belongs to him.

 

‘And maybe I wanted to pretend for a day too.’ The admission is quiet but its effect is like a bomb exploding in Kibum’s mind.

 

Kibum looks up and locks gazes with Jonghyun and there’s a veil between them that tears away, like cotton pulling away in strings. And he realizes that there _is_ love that ties them together. But not the kind of love he’s been waiting for, and he sees regret too. Regret for the knowledge that something between them could have become iridescent, but had been left unshined, unfinished.

 

And Kibum knows suddenly, with too much certainty, that the window has closed, sealed tight in this life. And the only thing left is to let go.

 

Maybe the emptiness is reflected in Kibum’s eyes, because there is worry in Jonghyun’s expression now.

 

‘I care a lot about you,’ Jonghyun says quietly. ‘But I cannot give you what you want.’

 

The words _Not anymore_ float in the air, unspoken, but there.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ Jonghyun says, and the sincerity is so vivid it turns into a dagger pushing into Kibum’s soul.

 

Maybe that’s why he cries. Great, gasping sobs that shudder through him and take his breath away. And Jonghyun darts forward and curls arms around him and at the touch of his skin, Kibum knows he _wants_ , still wants.

 

‘When did you give up on me?’ And it’s a stupid question, foolish and desperate, and slightly mad.

 

Jonghyun pauses, his breath drawing soft spirals along Kibum’s neck. ‘I don’t remember,’ he admits. ‘At some point, I just realized you didn’t really want what I wanted.’

 

Kibum begins to protest, but he remembers the games and the laughter and how easily people fell, and how violently he didn’t want to. Until Jonghyun. Except, even with Jonghyun, he refused to let his guard down. Not until he was lost forever.

 

Jonghyun presses his lips to Kibum’s forehead. ‘Let’s just go to sleep alright?’

 

All Kibum can do is nod.

 

~-~

 

‘I love you so _much_.’ He tells the sleeping Jonghyun later that night.

 

And he imagines that Jonghyun’s lips curve into a tiny smile.

 

~-~

 

When he wakes up in his own bed, in his own room, in pyjamas he would never have actually chosen (Jinki has strange taste sometimes), somehow he isn’t surprised.

 

It feels like a dream, or a fairy tale quest he was sent on to make sense of his own failed decisions and his own confused heart. It feels like something is ending, gone, and the circles he’s trudged through over and over in the past few months covered over with new ideas.

 

Maybe what he had needed was closure. Maybe what he had needed were the words that had spilled out of Jonghyun’s mouth and the smile that had touched his lips. Maybe what he had needed was the apology and the acknowledgement that it’s no point really, no point making himself hurt over and over because of a dream that somehow he had managed to let escape.

 

Kibum lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and stares up at his familiar ceiling.

 

 _Alright then,_ he tells himself. _Time to make new dreams._

 

~-~

 

They meet at a cafe this time, because Kibum is done with the drinking, done with the alcohol, done with self pity. At least that’s what he’s telling himself.

 

‘It’s rare to see you under sunshine nowadays,’ Minho quips and Kibum squashes down the urge to pour a glass of water over his annoyingly smug face.

 

‘I don’t know why I’m friends with you,’ he mutters, viciously.

 

‘Because I’m the only one who bothers to deal with your sad heartbroken pathetic ass,’ Minho replies, settling his bag down in the chair.

 

‘I’m going to buy something. What do you want?’ he continues, giving Kibum no time for a response.

 

‘Black coffee,’ Kibum says on reflex.

 

Minho arches an eyebrow. ‘Dieting again?’ Then he sighs and marches off to the counter, and Kibum is left with a strange soft feeling in the center of his chest he doesn’t quite understand.

 

When Minho comes back, Kibum is presented with a sugary complicated concoction topped off with whipped cream and he stares at it, almost bemused.

 

‘What is _this_?’

 

‘You like sweet things. You can consume unhealthy things once in awhile. And, apparently something major happened yesterday so that’s a good excuse.’ Minho’s smile is sweeter than the drink.

 

‘Why are you so nice to me,’ Kibum asks, meeting Minho’s gaze squarely. And it’s uncharacteristically serious. Their relationship isn’t built on serious talk, not really. It’s about reality hidden under quips and mocking laughter and truths hidden under layers of sarcasm.

 

‘Why can’t I be?’ Minho shrugs it off. ‘Being nice doesn’t need a reason.’

 

A long pause stretches between them. And that’s normal too. Minho isn’t afraid of silence, and there is comfort in just being there, without the need for words. But there’s something different in the silence now, something enlightening. Or maybe Kibum is thinking too much again. It’s odd, trying to navigate in a world where loving Jonghyun has become something that has to be shelved away. It’s like his heart is a little confused, a little lost. Like maybe loving Jonghyun had become something that it was too used to.

 

Kibum sighs. He knows getting over and moving on will take more out of him than he’s willing to admit. Lost love and lost chances. That aching knowledge of burning possibility will take some time to stop haunting him. Nothing hurts like what ifs and if onlys.

 

‘What did you want to tell me anyway?’ Minho takes a sip of his own drink and Kibum glares at it when he notices that apparently _Minho_ is allowed black coffee.

 

‘Athletes need to keep in shape,’ Minho answers Kibum’s unspoken complaint.

 

'You're not an athlete," Kibum wants to say, but there are wounds there that could be reopened. instead he launches into the tale of the last 24 hours of his life, because even if he tells no one else, he will tell Minho.

 

Minho is his keeper of secrets, his keeper of dreams.

 

So he pours out the story like it’s the only thing he knows, the words, the feelings, the way Jonghyun had looked at him, the realizations, the epiphanies, and the hopes that had been finally, ultimately stamped out.

 

He talks until his throat is clogged up and the tears he’s promised to never cry again gather in the corner of his eyes. There is always pain in letting go, and the claws of his desperate love for Jonghyun have left wounds deeper than he has realized.

 

‘The worst thing is that it could’ve been different, you know? If I had just put myself out there.’ And maybe that was the crux of it. The potential he had decided to let slip between the spaces of his fingers, unknowing. The crossroads where he had taken a turn away from Jonghyun. Perhaps he will never know when their paths had diverged, but the fact that at one time they might never have split burns a trail down his throat, turns his stomach into a mess.

 

‘There’s no point thinking about what if’s is there?’ Minho’s voice is too neutral. And Kibum wants to say something scathing, but can’t.

 

‘I guess not,’ he says, almost defeated, slumping down with his head against his arms.

 

‘I really wish I knew how it had happened,’ he ponders absently, playing with the straw stuck in whipped cream.

 

And he’s surprised when Minho lets out a laugh, almost mischievous, definitely knowing.

 

‘Don’t you know?’ He asks. And the impish gleam in his eyes make Kibum suspicious.

 

‘What makes you think I would know anything abo-’ And a memory comes hurtling back. Dark corners and smoky rooms, wide eyes and a question that he had answered without thinking too hard.

 

‘You,’ he exclaims, pointer finger extended in Minho’s direction. ‘What did you _do_ and _how?_ ’

 

‘There are still things you don’t know about me, Kim Kibum.’ Minho looks way too pleased with himself.

 

Kibum tilts his head, and thinks that maybe he would like to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Minho sees magic, he’s five and he thinks it’s fireworks.

 

The fireworks appear rather frequently from that special room only his mother uses at the back of the house. The room she sometimes brings people to, women and men who usually have expressions that remind Minho of the first day of school, like they’re going to be doing scary things. They are people unknown to Minho; people she calls ‘clients’. But Minho isn’t really sure what that means. When he asks his father, he’s told they’re meeting her for ‘consultation’. But Minho doesn’t know what that means either. Eventually, he figures it means they spend time making fireworks.

 

They’re pretty, he decides. So when he can, he likes to sit just outside the door and watch the fireworks leak out from the spaces under the door and near the hinges. Red, gold, turquoise, lavender, and once nearly a full rainbow of colours. So so pretty. He thinks everyone should sit with him to watch them. But when he tells his father about them, all he gets is ruffled hair and an amused laugh, and some muttered words about ‘highly imaginative children’. Minho doesn’t like it when adults use big words he doesn’t understand. And he scrunches up his face and says so, but his father just laughs a little more and brushes a kiss across his forehead. ‘It means you’re special,’ his father says, and Minho understands  _ that _ .

 

When he tells his mother though, her eyes light up and her smile is beautiful, and it’s exactly like when he’s done a clever thing, like when he had put on his shoes and uniform all by himself just the day before. ‘Mama,’ he says. ‘You have green in your eyes.’ And he wonders a little why he never noticed it before; an aqua circlet outlining the black of her pupils. ‘It’s pretty!’ 

 

His mother’s mouth stretches into a fond smile and she squeezes his cheek. ‘You have it too.’ 

 

She lifts him up to stare at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and oh, he _ does _ . ‘Mine is blue!’ he announces. And she chuckles a little. ‘It’s both,’ she tells him.

 

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ she whispers into his ear then, and her breath tickles. But he nods excitedly and agrees, because he likes having a little secret with his mother.

 

~-~

 

His mother lets him watch from then on, watch the way the focused intent of her eyes makes streams of colour flow out of her fingers and wrap around each person, at the scatter of bright lights that leave the person only to be replaced by a different colour. Sometimes it’s weird, it’s like the people who exit the room aren’t the same as the people who enter.

 

Sometimes different things happen though, and there are no fireworks. Just shades of twilight blue and rose pink mixing in a bowl that she gives to someone to drink. 

 

Minho doesn’t really understand anything, but he thinks it’s all very enchanting. Besides, he likes spending alone time with his mother. So he stays on his stool in the corner of the room, clutches his blanket to himself and observes.

 

It isn’t until he’s 11 years old that his mother explains everything.

 

~-~

 

‘If this is anything like “you’re a wizard, Harry!” I will never take you seriously again. Just saying.’

 

Minho glares at the man sitting across from him. ‘Shut up, Kibum. Or  _ I’ll _ never tell  _ you _ anything again.’

 

Kibum scoffs and raises an eyebrow. ‘You love me too much to do that.’

 

And Minho says nothing at all, because that’s too close to the truth he doesn’t actually want to talk about.

 

~-~

 

In the five years that pass, the people who come to see his mother dwindle and die out, and suddenly all she is, is a stay home mum, greeting her son after school with cookies and cake instead of with multicoloured fireworks dancing across the hall.

 

Minho doesn’t ask why, doesn’t quite like to question why his mother’s eyes dim a little over the years, why her smile turns strained at the ends. At any rate, he has more things to think about, like assignments, and sports, and pretty girls with braided hair who sometimes send tiny, fleeting, shy smiles his way. It turns into something resembling a fuzzy childhood memory, illusionary and untrue.

 

It’s his mother who brings it up. ‘Do you ever think of the fireworks you saw when you were younger?’ 

 

‘At the festival?’ Minho asks, mind still focussed on the essay plan in front of him.

 

‘No, at home.’

 

There is silence as Minho tries to gather scattered thoughts. 

 

‘I thought I imagined it all.’ 

 

‘Like it was a mass hallucination? I wish it was.’

 

There is something cruel and bitter in his mother’s gaze, and something deliberate in the way she lifts her hands and twists her wrists, almost like she’s turning a rope, breaking a knot.

 

Dimly, then more vividly, Minho sees something crimson jet out from under her fingernails in the direction of himself and then there’s a tearing pain in the center of his chest that blots out all other thoughts. He cries out, once, and his mother releases a terrifying laugh and drops her hands. The pain stops almost instantly.

 

‘Still think it was a hallucination?’

 

He stares at her in anger, knowing somehow that the pain was her doing, even if she hadn’t actually touched him at all. 

 

His mother runs fingers through her hair, almost harsh. ‘I’m sorry. But that was the only way to show you.’

 

‘Show me what?’

 

‘Look at me,’ she whispers, and it sounds like compulsion. And he does, but she looks like an ordinary human woman, like his mother. And his conclusion must be painted on his face because she sighs and and pats the side of his cheek. ‘Look harder.’

 

He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, doesn’t know what he should be seeing, but something realigns in his vision that second time and suddenly her physical form isn’t all that she is anymore. It is a shadowy vague form around the coloured lights that seem to be all she is made of. White and rose, silver and tendrils of black. 

 

‘Oh,’ he says. And through the blinding light he thinks she smiles.

 

~~

 

‘Is she evil?’ Kibum asks, and Minho shakes his head. 

 

‘She’s...human.’

 

~-~

 

There are three lights in each human, the mind the heart and the soul, and there are strings that bind the soul to the others. His mother can untie the strings and shift the soul from one body to another, from a body into nowhere.

 

The souls were the fireworks Minho saw when he was younger; each person’s a different shade. 

 

Minho lays a hand flat against his chest when his mother tells him, remembers the pain that had seared through his flesh. 

 

‘Don’t worry, only you and I can feel it, because we know it’s there. Everyone else just gets sleepy, it’s like getting drunk.’ 

 

Minho thinks that maybe everyone should feel the pain. That it would stop them from asking for such unnatural things.

 

~-~

 

‘What colour is mine?’ Kibum asks, curiosity evident on his features. And Minho is surprised that the cynicism has dissipated.

 

_ Yellow,  _ Minho wants to say.  _ Like the sun. Yellow for the creatives and the intellectuals, for the independent ones and the ones who are sometimes too afraid to reveal weakness. Those who fall in love and hide it behind beautiful laughter. _

 

‘You have no colour,’ he says instead, teasing evident in the curve of his lips. Kibum rolls his eyes and hits him on the arm. ‘Worst friend in the world,’ he mutters.

 

~-~

 

Minho’s mother teaches him things he does not want to know, like how to untie the strings that bind the soul to the mind and heart, and how to shift a loosened soul just slightly out of a body.

 

He thinks it’s evil, and he tells her so. 

 

‘It was, once,’ she says, and her voice is faded and grey. ‘Once there were people who took souls and cast them far from their bodies and their bodies became hollow. People who lived and breathed, who could think but never really felt, never really were. You’d think the heart gave us our characters and emotions, but it really doesn’t.’

 

Minho doesn’t quite want to ask what people came to her for, why souls would fly in and out of their door. Whether the tendrils of black that twined around the silver in the center of her chest meant something dark. 

 

‘I never did that,’ she says. ‘I did silly things. Switch souls of couples who wanted to know more about each other’s lives, let twin sisters test whether people really knew them, let a man be a woman for a day. Things like that. Stupid things, really. But I wanted to.’

 

She shouldn’t have done it. Perhaps no one ever told her, but the magic took its own price from her, took her energy and her goodness and made her crave to wield it, made her an addict. 

 

She could manipulate emotions too, take bits of the colours swirling inside of them and turn it into something else, feed them back into the person, distorted, mutated, changed. She forces Minho to try but he can’t, and there’s a large part of him that’s glad.

 

‘I was always asked to turn sadness into joy,’ she reminisces. ‘i wonder if they ever realized that this quick fix made the joy shallow and thin.’

 

‘Aren’t people silly?’

 

It isn’t evil, perhaps, but Minho doesn’t think it is good either.

 

‘Our magic got diluted,’ she tells him, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘It’s such a pity.’ And he thinks that just maybe, though she loves him so very very much, his mother loves these abilities much more than she loves the world and its people.

 

~-~

 

‘What colour is Jonghyun’s soul?’ Kibum asks softly.

 

And though Minho should have expected this, the question still wrenches painfully in his chest. Because for a long time, Jonghyun had been all Kibum had seen, and he’s still teaching himself to look away.

 

Minho slides his hand over Kibum’s, noting the subtle tremor and smiles gently.

 

‘Maybe, that isn’t something you should be thinking about.’

 

Kibum goes silent, but the acknowledgement in his gaze is outlined with despair and pain.

 

~-~

 

When Minho turns 13, he notices that there are strings that join his mother and father, that their hearts and minds are bound but their souls are not. Their souls have threads that lead away from each other. 

 

His mother laughs when he tells her. ‘Some people believe soulmates have to be together,’ she says. ‘I don’t.’ 

 

‘I fell in love with a man, and we created the bonds, knot by knot, together. It doesn’t matter that my soul’s string isn’t his. The rest of me is, and that’s enough.’

 

Minho thinks it’s a bit too much for a child of 13 years old to contemplate. But his mother had always talked to him like this, as soon as he was old enough to wonder. 

 

There are no people now, no customers, no clients, no fireworks. Just his mother sometimes looking out the window and testing bits of magic on oblivious passers-by.

 

‘What happened?’ Minho asks later on. 

 

‘Life,’ his mother replies. And her smile is soft.

 

Perhaps that’s the only answer that really explains anything.

 

~-~

 

Minho knows Kibum wants to ask about strings, about himself, and Jonghyun, and Jinki. About his almost love that had turned into nothing. About how they are all tied together. 

 

And Minho doesn’t want to answer those questions, not really. So he pushes his chair away from the table and touches Kibum’s shoulder. ‘We should go home, I’ll tell you more another time.’

 

On the way home, they do not talk of this, or about Kibum’s quiet sorrow. Perhaps Kibum realizes finally that Minho doesn’t want to, or maybe he himself is tired. They talk about celebrities and the latest news, about gossip from old friends. Kibum talks about artists he’s working with in the gallery, and Minho talks about his students. It’s like an ordinary day, like Minho hadn’t just been telling Kibum about otherworldly skills, like Kibum hadn’t just come back from a day in someone else’s body. 

 

‘I’ll call you,’ Kibum says when they separate. 

 

‘Yeah,’ Minho replies.

 

It is all very normal. But there is something tender and unguarded in the look in Kibum’s eyes before he leaves and Minho thinks wildly that maybe he’s waited long enough. Maybe there’s something good that will come out of this. Then he shakes his head and laughs. He wonders if maybe he’ll need to swap his own soul with whoever Kibum loves next, just to cure himself from the madness of being in one-sided love for too long. 

 

~-~

 

Minho doesn’t go back to his own apartment; he walks pass it in the direction of his childhood home, where his parents still live. And when his mother opens the door, he lets his head drop on her shoulder. 

 

She doesn’t say anything, just lets him in and leads him to the sofa. They stay quiet for a while, and Minho looks at his mother, greyer and thinner, and so fragile. He wonders when age had started showing on her face. 

 

‘I told Kibum about magic today,’ he says abruptly and his mother looks up. And for an instance he sees her need pulse like an evil beat in the center of her eyes. Then it fades away and she is his mother again.

 

‘What happened?’ She asks, her voice gentle and unassuming.

 

‘I did a stupid thing.’ And the story spills out in bits and pieces. 

 

‘You never wanted to ever do that,’ his mother says. And Minho’s shame feels like heat glowing under his skin.

 

‘I wanted him to  _ know _ . I wanted him to move on.’

 

‘To you?’

 

Minho freezes, and thinks about lying. But he knows his mother can see the emotions that are caught behind his heart. ‘Maybe,’ he admits, more to himself than her. ‘Maybe.’

 

‘He might not,’ is all she says in response. And they do not mention the subject for the rest of his time there.

 

When Minho leaves, he leans down and hugs his mother, and he can feel her bones through her skin. ‘I love you, Mama,’ he says quietly.  _ Even if some of the things you do I hate. _

 

‘Love you too, baby.’

 

~-~

 

There’s a picture framed on the table next to Minho’s bed. It’s one with him and Kibum, just one of those selfies that Kibum likes to take. He remembers being particularly happy that day. It had been a rare day where Kibum wasn’t talking about Jonghyun, or over analyzing each word and look. It had just been the two of them, talking about things that didn’t really matter, arguing about interpretations of literature and movies and Minho waxing lyrical on the importance of sports. It isn’t a high quality picture, and its resolution is fuzzy, but to Minho, it represents the best parts of their friendship.

 

Minho is 17 when he meets Kibum. By then he has already learned how to dim the light of people’s souls, but Kibum still stands out, like a beacon, like a beckoning call. They don’t have much chance to interact really, and Minho just glances at Kibum a lot out of the corner of his eye. Maybe that’s when he began falling. 

 

There’s a boy who’s always around Kibum, slightly shorter, with a loud laugh and soft eyes. And Kibum glows when he’s around. There’s a string between their hearts, not quite solid yet, wispy and thin, but there. Their souls are not connected, but Minho knows that has never really mattered.

 

The boy’s name is Jonghyun, and Kibum is in love with him. But he doesn’t talk about it, and neither does Jonghyun.  _ That will ruin them _ , Minho thinks suddenly, unsure where the thought has sprung from.

 

Kibum is thrown into Minho’s life by a flick of a pen and a teacher’s whim, and a project turns into a friendship. ‘Hello,’ Minho says on that first meeting. ‘I’m Minho.’ Kibum is still grumpy about not being put into the same group as Jonghyun, but looks up with a stiff smile. 

 

It’s not the most auspicious of beginnings, and Minho finds out that Kibum’s perfectionist nature means having to put in a lot more effort than he had been prepared for. But somehow in the midst of researching and writing and over practising presentations, when Kibum lets out a bit of exasperated snark and Minho responds with his own, they become friends. Before he knows it, Kibum is a regular on his call log, a regular on his text history. Minho gets to know Jonghyun too, but they aren’t friends so much as extensions of Kibum on either side, only talking when Kibum brings them together.

 

Minho is 19 when he falls in love with Kibum. It feels as natural as breathing. How could he not, when Kibum’s smile seems to light the world, and Kibum’s laughter is so distinctive and obnoxious, when Kibum lives his life with a kind of determined fervour and passion to make his own mark on the world, and it makes Minho want to be more. But Kibum is still in love with Jonghyun, and the string is still there, flickering in his vision, a cruel taunt reminding him that Kibum’s heart is already caught up with someone else. 

 

They are both 21 when Jonghyun meets Jinki. Jinki is the son of Jonghyun’s parents’ old friends, back in Seoul for the first time in 10 years. The first time Minho sees them together, he knows Kibum is in trouble. There is a string that joins Jonghyun’s soul to Jinki’s and though Minho knows that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything definite, the string between Kibum and Jonghyun is still thin enough to fray. His mother had taught him that soulmates gravitate to each other naturally, that they often find themselves in relationships without quite thinking about it, like magnets searching for opposite poles. But mostly, if one heart has already been ensnared, all it becomes is lifelong friendship.

 

Jonghyun’s heart is not quite ensnared, not quite caught. Jonghyun has never been completely sure of Kibum.

 

‘You should tell Jonghyun your feelings,’ Minho says, one day, the words like ashes on his tongue. And Kibum blinks at him, coy smile fluttering across his face. ‘I like the ambiguous part of beginnings,’ he says, flippantly. ‘Besides I don’t want to tie myself down just yet.’ He is sure about the future, but Minho thinks he shouldn’t be.

 

_ He’s going to fall in love with someone else, _ Minho thinks of saying.  _ And you will be left with a hole in your heart where he used to be.  _ But there’s too much bile in his throat, and he’s not good enough to put aside his own feelings and push Kibum into a happy ending without him.

 

He has just turned 22 when Jonghyun tells them both, hands bashfully twisting and light blush on his face. And Minho already knows because he had seen the string between Kibum and Jonghyun disintegrate and fall into dust. But Kibum hadn’t known. And there’s a grey cast that drops over his bright soul, a spread of dark spiderweb cracks over the light that is his heart. His smile is stiff when he congratulates Jonghyun, and his voice is too artificially cheery. Minho thinks that Jonghyun is aware, but chooses not to comment, chooses not to see. 

 

Kibum’s smile is fixed as they walk away later, fixed like it’s painted onto wood. And Minho stops him in a shaded corner, and asks him how he really feels. There is frustration like burning acid under his skin. Kibum says, ‘I’m fine, we weren’t anything anyway. It was stupid, just a crush, he didn’t  _ do _ anything and I didn’t either and Jinki is good for him and he’s happy and I’m happy for them and-’

 

He pauses to take a breath and his smile cracks into half and then abruptly he starts to cry. Minho pulls Kibum into a hug and lets the tears fall onto his shirt.  _ These things are all just spilled milk, _ Minho thinks.  _ But we always cry anyway. _

 

~-~

 

It takes six months of Kibum’s apparent determination to drink himself into kidney and liver failure that Minho decides something must be done. And that something he wants to do is also something he had vowed to never do.

 

~-~

 

When Minho is 18, his mother makes him deal with a request. It’s the first customer in years; a shifty eyed, visibly nervous young man that Minho distrusts on sight. It’s a simple enough request; fraternal twins wanting a taste of life in each other’s bodies. Except it’s strange how they had even heard of his mother at all when people who believed in her abilities had been lost to time, disbelief and modernization. 

 

‘Our parents know magic too,’ the man explains. ‘But we don’t have it.’ He looks searchingly at Minho’s mother. ‘We heard of you, we just wanted to see if it’s true.’ The man talks for both of them; words almost falling over themselves. The girl is too quiet.  _ She’s scared, _ Minho thinks suddenly. The thick, dense smog of her fear is obvious to one who can see. He knows his mother notices too, but he also knows that she is a little more blinded by the opportunity to once again use her skills.  

 

His mother surprises him though. ‘You do it,’ she tells him abruptly, as if coming to a definite decision. When she turns to look at him, her eyes are alight with possibility and anticipation. Minho doesn’t want to, and he says it quite firmly at first, but the hope that is flaring so brightly on his mother’s face makes his resolve go weak. 

 

So Minho sits with her as she teaches him to to gently tweeze out a string from the insubstantial material of one soul and attach the end to the hollow between the ribs in the body it is to be transferred to. That’s how he learns that if he tugs too hard it can be felt, for the girl cries aloud when he first tries. That’s how he learns that when you touch a person’s soul, you can delve also into their memories and desires. It feels invasive, like breaking the door of what made a person unique, and doodling over the face of it.  Minho hates it. 

 

But his mother loves it, and he can see the glee that it evokes obvious on each line on her face. 

 

There’s a spell you have to say to kickstart the process and he begins murmuring it with his mother’s voice in his ear. But the girl lets out a choked cry halfway through, her voice pleading and desperate. ‘I don’t want to do this,’ she says. ‘Stop please, I don’t want to do this.’

 

Minho’s voice falters, and the spell stills and shatters around them. ‘Please,’ the girl repeats. ‘I don’t want to do this.’ 

 

Her brother replies before anyone else can. ‘You promised!’ There’s something pleading and almost angry in his tone. 

 

‘You just want to fuck my boyfriend!’ The words come out in a crescending shriek and Minho starts thinking he’s in some sort of trashy B-movie, starts wondering if this whole situation is a kind of hidden camera prank.

 

‘Get out,’ he says coldly, when they continue to yell at each other, no signs of stopping. She is backing away from him, and underneath the rage is a fear, and there is a part of Minho that wonders what he had held over her in order for him to get her here at all. But there’s also another part of him that can’t be bothered, that has decided that stranger’s problems are beyond his control and therefore beyond his care. His height comes into intimidating play as he draws closer to the squabbling pair. ‘Get out,’ Minho says again, and there must be something terrifying about him, because they do leave, her with aplomb but her brother with obvious reluctance. 

 

‘The strings will knot themselves back eventually,’ his mother says tiredly to his questioning glance. ‘It wasn’t finished anyway.’ 

 

‘I’m never doing that again,’ he hisses at her, in lieu of a response. ‘Never.’

 

There’s an weariness older than her flesh in the way she agrees.

 

~-~

 

_ Never say never, _ Minho mutters to himself. while getting ready for dinner with Kibum, and Jonghyun,  _ and  _ Jinki. ‘He’s still my friend, we’re going to keep in touch,’ Kibum says when Minho looks at him in disbelief. ‘‘It’s been six months since they got together, he’s still one of my closest friends and I want to be happy for him.’

 

He takes a breath then looks up at Minho, appeal in his gaze. ‘Please come with me?’ And Minho cannot say no. 

 

He curses his affection, his concern, his loyalty, the way that Kibum’s dimples dip into his skin when he smiles, and the glow under his lashes. Then he curses himself for not having the courage to try, even now, when there are no strings binding Kibum to anyone else. He curses his gentleness, and his tenderness and his need to protect, and his fear of destroying this simple, casual, easy relationship for something that might be fraught with uncertainty and eventually lead to brokenness. 

 

Maybe this is all they can be. Or maybe he’s just a coward. But maybe he’s perfectly comfortable being a coward.

 

At any rate, there’s little he can do about this situation, coward or not, in love or not. Because it seems malicious to let Kibum meet them alone; one an almost lover, the other the one who had been chosen instead. 

 

Maybe Minho doesn’t want to be a coward any longer, maybe that’s why he does what he does, why he spends the meal gently undoing the strings that hold Jinki’s soul to his body, why he links them together; the boy Jonghyun once loved, and the boy he loves now. 

 

Perhaps it had always been something he planned to do, something that had prompted him to keep that memory and knowledge somewhat alive, running through the steps. Or maybe he’s too much in Kibum’s thrall that he allows himself to break promises, even those made faithfully to himself. 

 

Jonghyun is happy. And Minho knows Kibum can see it too, can see the quiet contentment and happiness that radiates almost like an aura around the couple. There is security and surety that line the genuine affection in the way they look at each other. Contentment in the way their fingers intertwine. It’s not dramatic, or overly demonstrative, it’s just there, as evident as the sun. 

 

Everything that Kibum had wanted. Everything that he does not have. Perhaps somewhere along the curving, twisting, deliberately complicated path to Kibum’s heart, Jonghyun had realized it wasn’t one that he had wanted to keep attempting to navigate.  _ Fool,  _ Minho thinks.  _ Kibum is worth it. _ But then he looks at Jinki’s curved eyes and brilliant smile and Jonghyun’s tender gaze and the soft affectionate twist of his mouth and he thinks maybe Kibum hadn’t been, at least not to Jonghyun, not ultimately.

 

He never actually planned to do it, it had been a whim at the time, and he never planned to whisper that spell. But when Kibum had let out that choked laugh later that night in the dim bar, unshed tears shining under his lashes, the bitterness and sorrow that had coated his words had forced Minho’s hand.

 

And now, he still isn’t quite sure what exactly he had hoped to achieve.

 

~-~

 

‘Why did you do it?’ Kibum asks gently. And Minho offers him the same explanation he had given his mother, hoping that Kibum doesn’t hear the unsaid hopes underneath the words.

 

‘You’re a good friend,’ Kibum says, and his smile is genuine. 

  
Minho smiles back and pretends the word ‘friend’ doesn’t feel like the twist of a knife in his gut.


	3. Chapter 3

Love is complicated, Kibum decides. 

 

Or maybe, maybe  _ he _ just makes everything far more complex than it should be. Maybe he’s the one that takes a perfectly coiled rope and knots it up and then cries over how difficult it is to untangle. At least that what it feels like when he looks back to how he had managed to mess up everything that could have happened with Jonghyun. Sometimes he thinks ‘almost’s are worse than having and then losing. 

 

But it’s all spilled milk now, everything scattered in broken pieces around the ground. And the words had come directly from Jonghyun’s lips,  _ I’m sorry, _ and gentle as they had been, Kibum knows rejection, knows they were meant as a kind of closure. Kibum remembers the softness in Jonghyun’s eyes, and that emotion that was almost regret that had marked that one day. 

 

How do you go about healing a heart? How do you go about falling out of love? There’s a painful pressure in the center of his heart that has become a constant in his days, worse in his nights. Because maybe despite everything that screamed against it, he had thought that one day Jonghyun would look over and see beyond the facade he had put up, and take his hand and lead him into the sunrise. Because that’s how fairy tales ended, didn’t they. Just not Kibum’s. 

 

No one had really ever seen beyond the facade, not even someone he had carved out his heart for, not even someone who had held his soul between his two hands, and then had let it go to take someone else’s hands. But it wasn’t Jonghyun’s fault, he hadn’t known. He hadn’t asked and Kibum hadn’t told and everything would have been easier if he had just said the words that had been spinning in the front of his mind, had been trapped in the path from his heart to his mouth. If one of them had. 

 

Kibum sighs and looks up at his white ceiling, lets his legs and arms hang off the edge of his bed. Time had lost some of its meaning, had spun past him too quickly, days turning into weeks without much acknowledgement or realization from him. It’s been one and a half months since that strange excursion into Jinki’s body, and nearly a month since Minho’s explanations. And life had trudged on like it always had, but Kibum had continued feeling a little bit out of step. The rational part of him knows it’s time to move on, that he should have started moving on the day Jonghyun had sheepishly and bashfully told them about the man he’s seeing, almost eight months ago. He supposes the fact that he isn’t dragging Minho out to drink more than twice a month should be a point in his favour. 

 

The memory of Minho’s accusing, exasperated look each time makes Kibum chuckle, despite himself. Minho never said no, always just went along and listened as Kibum ranted and cried. He’s too nice, really, and Kibum makes use of that too often. Someone less nice would have abandoned him to alcoholism a long time ago. Then his smile fades as he looks down and catches sight at the tiny photo framed next to his bed, of him and Jonghyun, their twin smiles and peace signs, and he wonders how long it takes to make your heart forget.

 

It’s a Saturday morning. And even though the sun is shining, his world has been dim for a while. 

 

~-~

 

_ Want to go watch a soccer game with me today? _

 

Kibum stares blankly at the message blinking on his phone. Did Choi Minho forget who he was? Kibum doesn’t like sports as a rule, or well, as a lifestyle decision and as a principle of his entire existence. 

 

_ What makes you think I would even wa- _

 

Then he remembers Minho’s quiet instinct in knowing to get him sugary drinks instead of bitter ones, remembers Minho’s silent companionship when all he needed was someone to be with, remembers the calls at two in the morning when his heart felt like it was disintegrating, remembers Minho’s warm hands and close hugs, gentle smiles and tender eyes. And Kibum thinks that somehow Minho knows that today he needs a friend, even when he doesn’t quite know how to explicitly ask for it.

 

_ Why not? _ he sends instead.

 

The flurry of obnoxious emoticons in Minho’s reply is almost worth the annoyance he’ll have to get through later.

 

~-~

 

‘It’s fucking cold,’ Kibum complains later, as they settle in carefully on the seats. ‘Why am I here?’ 

 

‘Because you love me,’ Minho tells him, before handing him his paper cup of coffee. 

 

‘You wish,’ Kibum snaps, almost playfully. Minho laughs. ‘Maybe I do,’ he says lightly. But there is a hint of something else that Kibum thinks he hears under the easy words. And it makes him look too closely at this boy he’s known for years, this boy who has seen him under the most ridiculous of circumstances, knows some of the fears and secrets that are buried under loud laughs and sassy speech. This boy who maybe was the one person who had seen through every facade Kibum threw up. Somehow he’s never felt the need to hide himself from Minho.

 

But whatever questions he might have wanted to ask are lost as the whistle blows and the game starts. 

 

Kibum spends most of the game watching Minho instead. At the way he gets lost in the play, his body shifting into position as if he’s on the court himself, his sometimes stoic face twisting itself into almost exaggerated expressions, of despair, of elation, of frustration. And Kibum laughs a little, at how 22 boys running around a field is able to elicit such intense emotions.

 

At half-time, Minho runs down to talk to the team, arms waving enthusiastically as he tries to transmit some of his ideas to them. Kibum rolls his eyes from far away, because Minho is only the teacher-in-charge, not the coach, but he knows that won’t stop Minho. Both the team and the coach are watching him with fond amusement though, and they seem to actually be attentive to some of the things Minho is saying. Kibum wonders what it’s like to be so beautifully simple, like Minho is, to live life with such fervour. Then he recalls the complicated abilities that lie behind Minho’s plain exterior and he thinks that maybe everyone has secrets they hide, everyone has stories they never tell. 

 

When Minho comes back, Kibum nudges him in the side. ‘If you’re so interested,’ he says. ‘Why are you just the teacher-in-charge? Why didn’t you try out as a coach?’ Minho just shrugs, and his smile turns bitter. ‘Sometimes life just doesn’t go the way you think it will,’ he says. ‘So we learn to bend with the wind.’ 

 

Kibum knows he held dreams once, about being a soccer star, about playing sports for a living. But he never was quite good enough. Now he ekes out his survival teaching high-school children, and watching over them play the very sport he once would have given his life for. Kibum thinks that the world needs more of the kind of person Minho is, the kind that will lean with the currents and take failure with a twist of the lip and a generous bow, and find another way to live a dream. 

 

But all he says to Minho is, ‘Stop trying to be poetic.’ And when Minho grins and outright laughs, Kibum relaxes. Maybe that’s all he was looking for. 

 

They go out for cake after the game. Minho’s treat, Kibum declares, since out of the goodness of his heart, Kibum had deigned to sit through an entire soccer match! Minho makes a face but acquiesces generously. And Kibum knows there are things Minho could have said in return, like  _ At least it made you come out of your house. _ and  _ I just wanted to distract you from your broken heart _ . and  _ I did this for you, not for me.  _ But he doesn’t, and Kibum is glad. Because he thinks maybe he’s finally tired of being pitied, tired of talking about the mistakes he made, the about turns he should have navigated, the words he should have said. Maybe he’s finally tired of wishing on ‘almost’s and ‘could have been’s. It’s exhausting treading the same path over and over, exhausting wringing out the same thoughts over the same situations, with nary a change that could possibly be made. 

 

Maybe there is something in the air, some special aura in children laughing and screaming while they kick a ball around, because Kibum doesn’t want to think about what has already been anymore, doesn’t want to dream about unattainable desires. And there’s a certainty that has settled in Kibum’s chest that makes him think that maybe he’s finally ready, to say goodbye to that shattered hope, and say hello to whatever the future might hold. 

 

When Minho calls his name softly, Kibum comes to himself with a start. Epiphanies seem to strike at the oddest of moments, and he had been staring blankly at the menu for a while. ‘You okay?’ Minho asks. And Kibum grins back, some of the spark that had been lost glimmering on the edges of his mouth. ‘Yes,’ he says, and for the first time in a long while, he means it.

 

~-~

 

‘You look happier today,’ Heechul comments, when Kibum steps into the art gallery for work the next Monday.

 

‘Do I?’ He hadn’t thought his bossl would notice; work was tedious and exhausting and he would think that Heechul had little time to care about other things outside of that, and certainly not the personal lives of subordinates. 

 

‘Yeah, you don’t look so much like someone tossed your heart through a shredder.’ Heechul looks away and Kibum tries not to laugh. Because it had been like that, for a while, and maybe it still is. But it’s going away, a little bit, slowly. He takes a deep breath.

 

He likes it; his work; being paid to be around beautiful pieces of art every day, being able to share that love for artistry with visitors, organizing events to try to introduce more people into that vibrant world. But he hadn’t really felt that excitement for a while; getting your heart broken makes you blind sometimes, he supposes, makes even the most incandescent of things turn grey and dull. 

 

But maybe he can look at things in the proper way right now, maybe he can see things for what they are. Maybe he can start living again. 

 

~-~

 

‘You know,’ Heechul remarks later, as they sort through pieces for display. ‘I don’t need you to be on hand for next weekend’s event. It’s the exhibition for that young artist you like. You should just come down as a visitor. Bring that Jonghyun you always talk about.’ 

 

His name is like a dagger in Kibum’s chest, and when Heechul tilts his head questioningly, Kibum knows his flinch had been obvious. 

 

‘I’ll bring Minho,’ he says, a quick, unthinking decision. 

 

Kibum is glad when Heechul’s lips curl into an understanding smile, and he doesn’t ask any questions. 

 

‘Ah the handsome one,’ he remarks.

 

_ Jonghyun is handsome too! _ Kibum wants to say, and he has to squeeze down the instinctive words that leap to his lips. 

 

‘Yes, the handsome one,’ he responds. Despite the painful twinge in his heart, Kibum almost laughs at the thought of the expression that will cover Minho’s face at the idea of going for an  _ art exhibition _ . 

 

‘Tit for tat,’ Kibum mutters to himself. And a soft involuntary smile flutters across his face. Just outside Kibum’s peripheral vision, Heechul shakes his head fondly.

 

~-~ 

 

‘You want me to go for an art exhibition.’ Minho sounds amused when Kibum tells him about him at lunch a few days later. ‘You do know that I’m not exactly artistic.’ 

 

Kibum can hear the inverted commas hovering over the words. He looks at Minho, and twists his face into a pleading expression. 

 

‘Jonghyun used to go with me…’ he says, soft and sad. 

 

When his voice trails off and he looks into the distance, he can see panic settle itself over Minho’s features from the side of his eyes. 

 

‘Okay, fine I’ll go! Just don’t...cry or anything!’ 

 

Kibum turns back with a mischievous smile at the words. ‘Great! It opens at 11 on Saturday morning but we can go around two?’ 

 

He expects Minho to be annoyed when he realizes it was a joke, to be angry even, because Kibum knows it had been a little cruel, to play on Minho’s kindness. He expects some kind of childish tantrum, the kind of things they do a lot. But all that happens is the panic dissolves into fond affection. ‘You  _ are _ feeling better, aren’t you?’ It’s said softly, and it’s filled with something that Kibum almost recognizes. There’s a warmth that pulses in his chest. 

 

‘I had hoped so,’ Minho continues. ‘But I haven’t been sure until right now.’ 

 

Kibum wants to hide; there’s something shimmering around them he doesn’t know how to acknowledge. He’s saved from having to answer when Minho shakes his head, and smiles wider. 

 

‘So two then?’ He asks. 

 

‘Yeah.’ Kibum says. And they spend the rest of the lunch talking about other things. There’s a spiralling, twisting feeling in his stomach that Kibum doesn’t understand. It isn’t a negative feeling, just something he can’t quite identify.

 

~-~

 

There’s something intriguing about art; how similar materials and tools can combine together in so many different ways; new perspectives at every angle, new meanings that jump out on every new glance. Kibum breathes in the air in the gallery; he thinks places that hold art smell different somehow, feel different entirely.

 

‘You look like you’re on drugs,’ Minho remarks. Then his smirk transforms into a smile. ‘You look really happy.’ 

 

‘It’s art!’ Kibum exclaims happily, like that simple statement means the world. ‘Plus, I like this guy’s pieces, they’re so dramatic, and bold.’

 

‘I’ll take you at your word,’ Minho says. Kibum laughs and hooks his arm into Minho’s, and drags him from piece to piece, explaining what to look out for and how he sees each artwork. He doesn’t miss the way Minho’s eyes track the movements of his lips, doesn’t miss the tenderness that sometimes flashes under his lashes, doesn’t miss the intent focus on Kibum’s words, on subjects that he barely understands. And it occurs to him, that this boy is a very special human.

 

~-~

 

‘This one is my favourite,’ Kibum says, as they stop in front of one particular painting. 

 

‘It’s just red splatters on a black background,’ Minho says.

 

‘God, you are such a caveman,’ Kibum retorts, but he’s laughing.

 

The artwork looks simple at first glance, apparently just a mess of crimson, almost like blood splatter, harsh against the black. And maybe for most people that’s all they saw. But Kibum had been caught by the contrast in colour, and had looked closer. The form of the art seems to almost mutate as he stared, and he saw that within the splatter is a shape of a heart, one with a jagged line right through the center. Kibum thinks, that what’s a shattered heart feels like, cracked right into half, tiny pieces flung without any sense of order. Kibum thinks, that maybe that’s what had happened to him, to his heart, not too long ago.

 

He tries to explain this to Minho, in halting, incoherent words and phrases, tries to describe the way it had felt that someone could portray so perfectly in physical form, the kind of ache he had been feeling for too long. It reminds him a little bit of catharsis; attempting to release whatever is left of that too broken self. 

 

When they leave the gallery, Minho throws an arm around Kibum’s shoulders and pulls him in. It’s casual, and meaningless, something they do quite often. But Kibum knows that it’s mute comfort, and silent acknowledgement and thanks. Somehow it also feels like something more.

 

~-~

 

The next time they see each other is nearly five weeks later. Minho had gotten caught in the stress of student’s examinations, setting test papers and marking them, and dealing with half crazed students belatedly realizing that examinations are too soon. 

 

Kibum is the one who drags him out, firstly because he wants to try the new dessert place near his apartment, and also because Minho looks like death warmed over. 

 

‘My treat,’ he says, when they plop down in a corner booth. And he shushes Minho before he can make a side comment. ‘Shut up and enjoy this, it’s rare.’ 

 

‘Oh gosh, don’t I know,’ Minho mutters, rolling his eyes. 

 

‘I said to shut up!’

 

Minho lets out a laugh, and Kibum feels a knot loosen in his chest, because the Minho had looked too haggard and drained earlier that day. Too tired to be that beacon of support and comfort that somehow Kibum has always expected him to be. 

 

~-~

 

‘Why are you staring at me?’ Kibum asks, about three slices of cake and two tarts later. Because Minho has been scrutinizing Kibum, brows furrowed and mouth turned into a slight frown. And Kibum has a distinct feeling that he isn’t quite looking at Kibum so much as into him.

 

‘Minho?’ Kibum says again, waving a hand in front of Minho’s abstracted face. ‘You there?’

 

‘I can’t see your soul anymore,’ Minho says, and the words sound almost like they’ve been dragged out from underwater. ‘I don’t know why.’ 

 

‘Does this mean I’m going to die,’ Kibum says flatly. 

 

‘You’re ridiculous,’ Minho says, not answering the question. 

 

‘I should ask my mother what it means,’ he muses next, as if taking notes for himself.

 

The non answer makes Kibum’s heart clench in his chest, and he raises a stricken face to Minho. He’s pretty sure if death had been introduced one year ago he would have embraced the idea with willing arms. But now, he thinks maybe he’s starting to remember why living is so coveted. 

 

Minho focuses on the expression of Kibum’s face and lets out a sharp laugh. ‘Oh my God, no, you’re not going to die. Is everyone who works in art galleries overdramatic or is it just you and Heechul?’ 

 

‘Your survey sample size is far too minute for any accurate conclusions,’ Kibum rebuts, and sticks out his tongue. 

 

‘I’ll ask my mother, it’s probably nothing important.’

 

And then Minho steals the last chocolate eclair from right under Kibum’s nose and they forget entirely about not seeing souls and whatever it could mean.

 

~-~

 

It’s a few days later that Kibum remembers to ask. They’re at lunch again; the high school Minho teaches at is near to the art gallery where Kibum works and it seems completely logical for them to meet for lunch a couple of times a week. It’s weird they’d never done it before. Heechul’s eyebrows had risen into his hair the fourth time this had happened, but he hadn’t actually said or done anything, aside from cackling. Kibum doesn’t want to speculate too much about what Heechul might think, but he decides firmly that whatever it is Heechul must be thinking too much. 

 

‘I can’t tell you yet,’ Minho replies. And his grin is infectious. ‘It’s not a bad thing. Really. But I can’t tell you yet.’ 

 

Kibum squints at him in suspicion but lets it go when Minho reaches over and squeezes his hand.

 

‘Trust me.’

 

~-~

 

(The call to his mother is more daunting than Minho had expected. Maybe it’s because she knows about his long, unexpressed feelings for Kibum, maybe it’s because he knows how much of his emotions she can actually see, maybe it’s because she’s not quite predictable. Maybe it’s because he knows how capricious magic can be, and despite whatever he had said to Kibum, he’s afraid of what it all means.

 

‘What does it mean,’ he starts. ‘When you stop being able to see a soul?’

 

‘Just the soul?’

 

‘Not just the soul. Everything. He’s gone opaque, I’m not sure, I’m worried…’ Minho doesn’t know how to express the spikes of panic that the idea elicits.

 

‘Is it Kibum?’ It’s incredible sometimes, how completely obvious it all is. 

 

‘Yes.’

 

‘Oh,’ his mother says, softly. Then, louder. ‘Oh!’

 

For some reason, concealed to Minho, she proceeds to laugh; long, full-throated and musical. 

 

‘Mother,’ Minho says, dry. ‘It would be nice if you’d tell me what’s so funny.’

 

His mother sputters some incomprehensible half words into the phone, and continues laughing. 

 

Minho sighs.)

 

~-~

Time goes by like it always does, the seconds of the clock moving too quickly for the eye to follow. And each morning that he awakes gradually becomes less grey, gradually becomes filled with light again. It feels almost like getting blinkers removed, like being released from isolation into real life. Kibum thinks that maybe the scar on his heart will always be there, a reminder of the love he had accidentally thrown away, the life he had accidentally given up. But maybe the pain will fade, is fading. He thinks that fate always offers alternate paths, he’s just has to find them. 

 

Jonghyun calls him one day, and they talk, for the first time in months. And Kibum remembers what it was like, being friends with Jonghyun, how easily he can still pull laughter from his throat. The kind of laughter that makes your stomach hurt. He remembers how kind Jonghyun is, how loving. He remembers how much he loved the friendship, before he fell in love. 

 

‘How  _ are _ you?’ Jonghyun asks, and Kibum still knows him well enough to detect the half concealed fear hiding behind the words. 

 

‘I’m good,’ Kibum answers. ‘Really good. How is Jinki?’

 

When Jonghyun hesitantly starts talking about Jinki, Kibum is surprised to find out his chest doesn’t ache, surprised to find out he can laugh at the stories of the sometimes awkward mishaps that they get into, surprised that the bitter pain of jealousy no longer seeps into his veins. 

 

So when Jonghyun says, ‘We’re still friends, right?’ Kibum can reply with a firm, ‘Yes. Always.’

 

After he ends the call, he glances at that hopeful picture framed up next to his bed; the one of him and Jonghyun. With a wistful smile, he slips the picture out of the frame, presses his lips to the grinning face of Jonghyun, and lets it fall into the wastepaper bin. He replaces it with a photo of him and Minho.

 

It feels right.

 

~-~

 

Minho is really happy these days, Kibum notices, as if there’s a burning exhilaration under his skin that Kibum can’t pinpoint the source of, an irrepressible glee that he emits unconsciously. It annoys Kibum a little, that there’s that much happiness thrumming in Minho’s veins he doesn’t know the reason for. The day Minho practically skips along the road to meet him is the last straw. 

 

‘Why are you acting like a highschool girl with a crush?’ It sounds cranky. Kibum didn’t plan to sound cranky but there’s no escaping it now.

 

‘I am?’ Minho actually tilts his head curiously.

 

‘Yes, you were  _ skipping _ . Are you in love or something?’ It’s a flyaway question, meant to tease but it comes out too serious. 

 

‘Yes, I am actually,’ Minho admits, with far too little self consciousness. Kibum does not expect this answer, and it sparks a kind of discomfort in his stomach. 

 

‘Who is it?’ he probes. ‘Do I know them?’ 

 

‘Yes,’ Minho says. ‘ _ You _ know  _ him _ very well.’ Kibum doesn’t know what to make of the strange emphases, or the anxiety that is fizzing up his throat. It’s all too unexpected. 

 

‘When can I meet him?’ He asks. And the fact that he most sincerely does  _ not _ want to meet this mysterious him is not lost on him. 

 

‘Not yet,’ Minho replies, and his smile is brilliant. Kibum hates that unknown guy already, but he doesn’t quite understand why.

 

~-~

 

‘Kibum-ya,’ Heechul says out of the blue, when he gets back from lunch. ‘Find someone who will work very hard to make you happy, okay?’

 

Kibum blinks at Heechul in silence for a long moment, then smiles. ‘I will,’ he promises. That he has a fleeting thought of Minho makes something in his gut twist.

 

~-~

 

When Minho asks Kibum to go with him to an arcade a few weeks later, Kibum replies almost grumpily, ‘Ask the guy you’re in love with.’ He doesn’t understand when Minho snickers and doesn’t deign to give him a reply. ‘Just come with me,’ Minho urges and Kibum rolls his eyes. He doesn’t understand the soft light in Minho’s eyes, or the tenderness in his touches, doesn’t understand why just looking at Kibum can make Minho’s face light up. He doesn’t know if maybe there are conclusions he’s deliberately failing to see.

 

At any rate, arcades are fun, and despite himself, Kibum knows he’ll enjoy himself.

 

_ He’s such a competitive idiot _ , Kibum thinks fondly, as he watches Minho play every game with an almost childlike concentration and intensity.

 

‘What is he like?’ Kibum can’t help himself from asking about an hour later, as they pick out a racing game to play. 

 

‘Who?’ Minho asks, distracted by the vivid colours and loud noises around them.

 

‘The guy you like.’

 

Minho chuckles, low and amused, like he has a secret. ‘He’s feisty,’ he says. ‘And sharp tongued, and sometimes he likes to hide behind sarcasm and wit instead of showing his true feelings. He’s really artistic, and kind-hearted, and he tries too hard to be a good person.’

 

Minho looks up, and stares straight at Kibum. There’s something disconcerting about the way he looks. ‘He’s beautiful, and his features are almost too sharply defined. They make him look delicate in some angles, and in others so strong you’d think he can carry the world. He got his heart broken once, and nearly crumbled under the weight of it. But he picked himself up. He doesn’t know it, but to me, he’s one of the strongest people in the world.’

 

Kibum stops Minho as he opens his mouth to continue. There’s something boiling in the spaces between his lungs, and he feels like oxygen has been stolen right out of them.

 

‘Is it,’ he starts. ‘Is it me?’ His voice sounds incredulous even to his own ears. It seems incredible.

 

‘Is it really so hard to believe?’ Minho asks. Kibum looks at the tiny smile on his lips and memories of the many unspoken, quiet actions and gestures that Minho has made over the years swarm into the front of his mind. It feels like someone has swung an overly enthusiastic uppercut at him.

 

‘You don’t have to promise me anything, Kibum,’ Minho continues. ‘It’s been a long time, I don’t actually expect anything now.’ 

 

‘How long?’ The question is soft.

 

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Minho replies. ‘Let’s just play.’

 

Kibum plays the racing game with a sense of unreality, like he isn’t fully in his body. He glances over at Minho and is amazed at how fully he’s immersed in the game, how easily he seems to have shut away the fact that he had basically laid his heart bare. And his gaze lingers over his strong features, that stunningly handsome profile, and he wonders how many people realize that the soul glowing inside this body is much more breathtaking. 

 

In an instant, everything falls into place.

 

~-~

 

It is partly mischief, when Kibum leans over and presses his mouth to the side of Minho’s jaw then to the corner of his mouth. Partly to watch his attention on the game slack and waver, and allow Kibum to bring his own car to the first place. Partly because there’s something alluring about the way the glaring light falls across Minho’s face.

 

When Kibum shrieks ‘I win!’ Minho pulls himself out of the shock and turns to him. There is something approaching hurt and anger in his gaze. ‘You shouldn’t make use of people’s feelings like that, Kibum.’ His tone is scolding and disappointed. 

 

‘I wasn’t,’ Kibum says. And he’s tempted to hide again, turn away with a wicked laugh, pretend like he had with Jonghyun. ‘I just wanted to kiss you.’ He shrugs, and tries to avoid Minho’s eyes, he feels like he’s suffocating. ‘Did you,’ Minho says, a semblance of a smile forming on his face.

 

‘Yeah,’ Kibum admits. He smiles, and he thinks maybe his smile looks as terrified as he feels. ‘I can’t tell you I feel the way you do, but there’s something there I want to understand, something I want to try and if...maybe you don’t mind that, we can try. Together?’

 

The smile that spreads across Minho’s face is almost luminous. ‘You said you wanted to kiss me?’ He asks. It’s not actually an answer. 

 

At Kibum’s confused nod, Minho tugs him close and presses their mouths together. It’s uncomfortable; Kibum’s back is hitting the controls; and the whirring, beeping sounds of an arcade is a strange soundtrack to a first kiss. But as Kibum lets his fingers tangle in Minho’s hair and Minho traces his thumbs so tenderly across Kibum’s cheekbones, it feels perfect.

 

They lose track of time and place, lost in the touch of mouths and skin, and it takes a tiny childish voice whispering ‘excuse me,’ to pull them back into reality. Kibum looks up to see about three or four preteen boys with achingly uncomfortable expressions painted across their features. 

 

‘We were wondering,’ one of them starts, obviously the nominated spokesperson. ‘If you weren’t playing anymore...and if we could?’ 

 

It should be humiliating really, absolutely mortifying, but it’s not. The euphoria of before is still lingering. Kibum starts laughing abruptly, and his apologies come out in stammers and gasps. Minho grins lazily and grabs both their bags, dragging Kibum away by the wrist.

 

When they get outside, Kibum leans against Minho and laughs until his breath runs out and he can’t stay on his feet anymore. ‘That has never happened to me before,’ Minho remarks.

 

‘Me either,’ Kibum agrees. He looks up at Minho and smiles, raising his hands to rearrange some strands of Minho’s hair. 

 

‘Let’s go shopping!’ Kibum exclaims, sliding his hand into Minho’s. Their fingers interlace almost naturally. 

 

‘Alright,’ Minho says. ‘Why not.’

 

~-~

Kibum is pretty sure Minho isn’t watching the show they have on the television; he’s settled his head comfortably into Kibum’s lap and is playing with Kibum’s fingers. 

 

‘You only like watching sports,’ he had once complained at Minho, and then forced him to watch an Italian film that he had reluctantly enjoyed. Kibum considered that a victory, Minho called it cheating.

 

The show they have on now is a documentary on the various art styles over the years and it’s something similar to what Kibum has watched many times over. When Minho had walked through the door, he had laughed, and then invaded Kibum’s personal space to use him as a pillow. 

 

‘You know,’ Kibum remarks. ‘It’s been years, but I’ve never found out why you stopped seeing my soul.’ He taps the fingers of his free hand on Minho’s forehead, and then twirls his fingers absent-mindedly through Minho’s hair. 

 

In the silence that descends, Kibum has time to panic again. Despite their relationship of two years, he’s never really understood the concept of magic. It seems so very far removed from the rational, practical person that Minho is. And everytime he looks at the neat, compact, carefully primped figure of Minho’s mother, she hardly looks like the magic addict that Minho has painted her out to be. He supposes everyone has hidden depths, hidden vices. 

 

Minho heaves a sigh. ‘I thought you had forgotten,’ he admits easily. And Kibum laughs. ‘I rarely forget things,’ he says. ‘You know that.’ 

 

Minho lifts himself up off Kibum’s lap and turns slightly to face him. He looks strangely nervous. ‘When we stop being able to see souls…’ he trails off and looks carefully at Kibum’s face, as if trying to memorize the contours. ‘It means a string has formed between us and that person.’ Minho ducks his head and waits for Kibum’s reaction.

 

There is a pause while Kibum tries to make sense of what that sentence means. ‘This means,’ he says slowly. ‘That you knew what I felt before I did.’ 

 

‘It also explains why you were so annoyingly  _ happy _ in that period of time.’

 

‘Yes,’ Minho says, and there is a smile he cannot hide that unfurls across his face.

 

Kibum raising a hand to hit him lightly against the shoulder is probably not the reaction Minho expected. ‘Why didn’t you tell me!’ he exclaims. 

 

‘What was I supposed to say,’ Minho says. ‘Hey, you don’t realize right now, but you’re kind of in love with me?’ 

 

He shrugs. ‘At any rate, I wanted you to find out on your own.’ 

 

‘You waited for a very long time,’ Kibum says softly.

 

‘You were worth it,’ Minho says, and his smile is something that Kibum wants to catch and keep next to his heart forever.

 

‘You might be perfect,’ Kibum mutters. ‘And that is so bad for my self-esteem.’

 

Minho chuckles and slings an arm around Kibum’s shoulders. ‘No, you should feel proud for snagging me.’

 

‘Gross,’ Kibum quips. ‘Demoted from perfect status immediately.’ 

 

Minho grins, then pulls Kibum in and presses his lips against Kibum’s in a chaste kiss. ‘I love you, you know,’ he says tenderly. ‘I love you too,’ Kibum says gently. And he means it. It had taken him awhile to realize, and a little longer to verbalize, but he knows loves Minho in a way he thought he would never really be able to; loves him in a way that is inextricable from who he is and how he lives, like they are extensions of each other. It is not all consuming, the kind of love he had wanted to lavish on Jonghyun, it is not possessive or obsessive. It has a quiet contentment and sureness that Kibum thinks is so much better. 

 

They lean against each other in silence for a long while. There is peace with Minho, Kibum thinks. And it’s a peace he’s planning to hold on to for as long as he can. 

 

~-~

 

‘You sure you don’t want to join Jinki and me to play pool?’ Minho asks later.

 

‘Nope,’ Kibum responds. ‘I don’t like pool, plus I’m meeting Jonghyun for dinner anyway.’

 

‘We seem to be swapping boyfriends,’ he observes. ‘How strange.’ 

 

Minho strides up to him, and catches Kibum’s face in his hands. ‘Should I be worried?’ he asks, and beneath the joking tone, Kibum can hear a slim veneer of worry. 

 

‘Silly,’ Kibum says, and leans up to kiss him. ‘We’re just friends. Like you and Jinki. Like me and Heechul. Like you and that really pretty assistant teacher I saw talking to you so intently last week.’ 

 

‘It was for a student who has been missing school!’ Minho insists. ‘You’re so silly.’

 

‘You’re worse,’ Kibum retorts. 

 

‘Yeah,’ Minho says. ‘But you forget I saw how much you loved him.’ 

 

_ And I can’t see how much you love me _ , is the unspoken continuation of that sentence. Kibum knows that sometimes the opaqueness baffles and frustrates Minho. 

 

‘I love you,’ Kibum says again. ‘And I know you believe me, so where is this coming from?’

 

‘Hey,’ Minho says flippantly. ‘Can’t Mr. Perfect have insecure days?’ 

 

‘I love you,’ Kibum repeats. And he kisses Minho until he feels the muscles in his back relax. ‘Believe me.’

 

‘I’ll come home later and show you,’ he adds, glint in his eyes.

 

Minho lets out a groan, and falls against a wall in mock agony. ‘Now I don’t want to leave.’ 

 

‘Go,’ Kibum says, pushing him out the door. ‘Your booking is in 30 minutes. I’m leaving in a while too anyway.’ 

 

‘I love you,’ Minho says again, and his smile is almost giddy. ‘It’s been two years but I still love saying that.’

 

Kibum chuckles and leans up to kiss him, and he thinks that maybe that one day living in Jinki’s body has turned out to be worth every single drop of pain.

**Author's Note:**

> this might be one of my favourite things i've written. also, i need to write more minkey.


End file.
